A Quick Rant - A Health Insurance Story, And A Reminder
I recently had a surgery I want to discuss, especially in the light of certain events. I also have a reminder to share.
A quick story that starts with me pointing out that I am continually on record as being against the death penalty, as this destroyed-by-the-removal-of-annotations Dystopian Review video from 2014 establishes, and that I live my life as a pacifist except in self defense or defense of the defenseless.
Murder is categorically bad.
...But it sure is odd that all these "health care" companies are suddenly scrubbing their executive boards off their websites after one person - whose coverage denial pen-strokes were ABSOLUTELY acts of murder-for-profit - got an ever-so-slightly more direct version of what he did to sick babies (among others), just from the veneer of a megacorporate office.
Sure is odd, indeed!
And to be clear, that's not a judgment on the "Health care industry." My doctors? Just about all of them are great. In fact, my ENT did a fantastic job with my recent sinus surgery! My 10 day post-op evaluation was Monday, and the Doc’s skill plus my adherence to post-surgical care led to me getting told I looked like I was 3-weeks off surgery, not 10 days. I get a little stuffy/irritated by the end of a day, but I'm doing okay!
...But even the Doc would admit he could have done better, though!
It's not his fault, of course. See, my 40 years of ear and sinus problems are based on congenital Eustachian tube problems. I can't properly drain and/or regulate pressure, so it builds up and I get infections. I've lived with it for 40 years. And, with modern medicine, there's a surgery that can fix it! And the doc!! He didn't do it!
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield (the same fuckwits vacillating on whether or not to fully pay for anesthesia) denied it as "experimental."
So when my 8th left ear tube and 5th right ear tube fall out in 6-12 months and my ears (hopefully fucking don't!) re-infect, maybe THEN the "experimental" surgery won't be labeled as such. Or they'll say, "Well, gee, he failed the non-experimental stuff, so give him the experimental stuff." Or I'll have to see a specialist-of-specialists to get extra-special approval...
...So I kinda get why so few people are shedding tears about this; and why so many Joker “You get what you fucking deserve” GIFs are being thrown around. Don’t you?
And, yes, that reflects something very sick in our society, pun fully recognized. It IS sick. But the thing is? When you take away peoples' chances at living fulfilled lives - like, say, through the imposition of crushing medical debt in a for-profit healthcare system - and give them absolutely no recourse to a better system, people start liking the taste of any blood that isn't their own.
A system is indeed sick when it’s worst-off people are throwing laughing emojis and memes around in the face of a murder…Except that the murdered man was, himself, absolutely a murderer, and this is the only form of justice they have seen for these kind of sickos, so to them it’s only fair. Because in many ways? That’s what we all agreed to when we agreed to have a society: If you put your extravagant profits ahead of others’ very lives, people might take offense at that.
So a reminder, friends:
Social contracts like collective bargaining, ‘affordable’ health care, and Democracy as a whole are the historical solutions to, "I want something and you will give it to me and/or I will bash you in the face until you give it to me." Because it is quickly becoming apparent that if the justice system fails to account for atrocities, or if atrocities are permitted under the color of legalized profit, there’s a whole fucking lot of people who can and will take glee in watching the consequences to the breaking of those social contracts.
The sad thing is that, while I understand scrubbing websites as a security measure makes sense? I don't hear nearly the same urgency with respect to talk about how, "You know, maybe insurance companies COULD stand to make less money and grant more coverages."
So...You know, something to consider, I guess. Medicare For All, or something - and let’s have less murder, especially murder-for-profit-by-pen-stroke.